Värde Merges Vía Célere & Aelca to Create one of Spain’s Largest RE Firms

1 October 2018 – El Español

The US fund Värde has created and will control one of the largest residential property developers in the country after merging the two companies in the sector in which it holds a stake, Vía Célere and Aelca, according to a statement issued by the entity.

The resulting company, which will retain the name Vía Célere, will have the capacity to deliver 2,000 homes in 2019 and 5,000 homes in 2021.

Värde will control 75% of the share capital of the new Vía Célere. Nevertheless, the firm will continue to be led by Juan Antonio Gómez-Pintado (pictured above), who also chairs the real estate trade association.

This is the US fund’s second merger operation in the Spanish real estate sector, after it integrated Dos Puntos, the real estate firm that it constituted with assets left over from the San José group, and Vía Célere in April 2017.

With its latest operation, Värde says that it is “reaffirming its commitment to the Spanish market”, which it considers is still highly “fragmented” and “needs greater consolidation by the operators to provide a rate of deliveries that reflects the budgets prepared”.

Värde, together with Lone Star, Castlelake, Blackstone and Cerberus, is one of the overseas funds that arrived in Spain during the peak of the crisis to buy up real estate assets, above all those that the banks had been left with after foreclosing debts.

Possible resizing of the workforce

According to Värde’s data, the property developer that it has created owns assets worth €2.2 billion, located all over the country, although the firm did not provide details about the new entity’s landbank in square metres or the number of homes under construction.

According to information provided by the new Vía Célere, 38% of its assets are located in Madrid, 20% in Málaga, 11% in Barcelona, 9% in Sevilla, 5% in Valencia and the remaining 17% in other provinces.

25% of the share capital of the new Vía Célere, which is controlled by Värde (75%), is distributed between other shareholders, all of them are foreign investors, such as Barclays.

At the operational level, the new real estate giant says that, in theory, it will hold onto the 300 employees that make up the workforce, although it does not rule out “resizing its structure” over the coming months, depending on its needs.

Original story: El Español

Translation: Carmel Drake

Quabit Generated Profits of €1.1M in H1 2018

27 July 2018 – El Economista

Quabit Inmobiliaria recorded a net profit of €1.1 million during the first half of the year, compared with losses of €3.5 million during the same period in 2017, according to information submitted by the company on Friday to Spain’s National Securities and Exchange Commission (CNMV).

The firm’s net turnover amounted to €9.1 million during H1, which more than tripled the €2.8 million recorded a year earlier; and the operating result entered positive territory, amounting to €3.6 million.

The real estate firm closed land operations amounting to €24 million, spanning a buildable surface area 85,130 m2, during the first six months of the year.

In total, since kicking off its growth plan in 2017, Quabit has invested €193 million in plots to build almost 4,850 homes, which means that it has already fulfilled 75% of its target to promote 7,900 homes by 2022.

As at 30 June 2018, the firm’s residential portfolio comprises 3,237 homes, which will generate an estimated turnover of €672 million that will be reflected in the income statement as they are handed over in 2018 and 2019. In June, handover began of 116 homes on the Quabit Aguas Vivas urbanisation in Guadalajara, and the firm will finish the year with a total of 215 homes delivered.

The group highlighted that it will see the sale of almost 1,000 homes in 2019 before it reaches its “cruising speed” of 3,000 deliveries per year in 2022.

Original story: El Economista 

Translation: Carmel Drake

La Llave de Oro Buys Land in Ibiza to Build 65 Homes

8 May 2018 – Eje Prime

La Llave de Oro is on a roll in the office and residential sectors in Spain. After purchasing a plot of land on which to build offices in the 22@ district of Barcelona from Metrovacesa last June for around €20 million, the group is continuing to explore new destinations into which to expand its business. The latest has been the purchase of a plot of land in Santa Eulària des Riu, in Ibiza, on which it will build 65 homes, according to Ferrán Marsá, CEO of the group, speaking to Eje Prime.

According to Marsá, the project in Ibiza is currently being reviewed, although the plans are for the building work to begin imminently. In addition to homes, common areas, car parks and swimming pools will also be built on the plot.

Moreover, this is not the group’s only project on the Balearic Islands. In Palma de Mallorca, the company is immersed in the construction and subsequent sale of a development comprising 16 homes and parking spaces at number 16 Calle Alber, in the Es Rafal Vell area. La Llave de Oro also has a sales office in Palma de Mallorca.

Nevertheless, the group’s main business is focused in Cataluña. La Llave de Oro is currently building fifteen homes at number 286 Calle Pallars, in Barcelona, as well as another 30 homes (plus two commercial premises and a car park) in Nou Rubí, in Rubí.

La Llave de Oro is also working on a 95-home development in Plaça Europa, in l’Hospitalet de Llobregat. There, the company is also going to build a commercial premise, two social rooms and 106 parking spaces. It will be one of the developments that incorporates the greatest number of new features in terms of customisation and energy ratings.

To reach the 450 homes that La Llave de Oro plans to hand over in the coming years, the company has also started work on the construction of almost 60 homes at number 179  Passeig Taulat, in Barcelona, as well as on 90 homes in Sant Cugat del Vallés, which correspond to the second phase of the Volpellers development.

Diversification strategy 

Although La Llave de Oro is going to continue to focus on the development and construction of primary residence homes in Barcelona and the first metropolitan ring, the company is also going to keep looking for opportunities to diversify its revenues. One of the businesses that the group is firmly backing is the hotel sector, as well as the office segment.

The company opened a hotel on Avenida Drassanes in the Catalan capital in 2012, the Andante Hotel, with 134 rooms and which it manages directly. This model involving the development and subsequent management of a hotel, whose results have proved very satisfactory, is what the firm wants to replicate in at least two or three more establishments.

In terms of the office sector, La Llave de Oro used to own a portfolio of almost twenty rental properties, prior to the crisis, which it sold to Goldman Sachs two years ago to raise funds for its property development and construction business, in a deal worth €90 million.

Now, La Llave de Oro is expressing interest in returning to that business segment through the construction and rental of several office buildings in Barcelona. Its purchase last year of a 3,300 m2 plot in the 22@ district of the Catalan capital for €22 million forms part of that strategy. The group plans to build 17,400 m2 of office space on that plot, which used to be owned by Metrovacesa (…).

La Llave de Oro group recorded turnover of €125 million in 2017, compared with €140 million in the previous year. Its workforce comprises 200 professionals (…).

Original story: Eje Prime (by C. Pareja)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Inditex Reorganises its Logistics & Unifies its Warehouses for Online & Physical Stores

28 February 2018 – El Economista

In recent years, one of Inditex’s big secrets has been its logistical efficiency and its capacity to move any garment anywhere in the world in record time. Nevertheless, the development of its online business has now forced the Galician fashion giant to go a step further.

With the aim of reducing costs and increasing its profit margins, which have been decreasing systematically since 2012, Inditex has launched a project to unify the management of stock for its physical and online stores. The idea is that the same warehouse should be able to supply stores on the high street and in shopping centres, as well as customers who buy garments through the website.

The project forms part of the company’s digital integration policy. In fact, data collected by Inditex shows that a significant proportion of customers make their purchases online in the same physical store and that around 60% of the returns and exchanges for products purchased through the online channel are managed in a physical store.

Omnichannel strategy

In this vein, in recent months, Inditex has been strengthening its omnichannel strategy. In this way, at its store in Marineda, in La Coruña, it has opened an automated delivery point, with capacity for up to 700 packages, where users may pick up orders they have placed online without having to wait.

After launching that project last September, under the development of its equipment at the Technological Centre in Arteixo (La Coruña), the company explained that its aim is to take a step further towards the integration of its physical and online stores.

Improved deliveries

In December, the President of Inditex, Pablo Isla, announced that the group had started to offer same-day delivery in six cities – Madrid, London, Paris, Istanbul, Taipei and Shanghai – and next-day delivery in Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Poland, China and South Korea.

According to Isla, it is about looking for an “increasingly comprehensive management of the online business”, whereby allowing improvements in delivery times. Just a few weeks ago, at the end of January, Zara, the flagship brand of the Galician group, unveiled the first store in the world that specialises in making and collecting online orders, as well as processing any returns or exchanges, at a new store in the Westfield shopping centre in Stratford (London).

That is a pop-up or temporary store, which will remain open until the flagship store in the same shopping centre is reopened in May, which is going to see its surface area double to 4,500 m2 with a completely new concept.

“The staff in that store use tablets and mobile devices to help customers, who have the option of receiving their orders just a few hours later – if the order is placed before 14:00 – or the next day – if it is placed after that time. It also facilitates the payment system thanks to an innovative system of bluetooth card payment terminals”, explain sources at Inditex. The company, which has 7,504 stores in 94 markets around the world, has an online presence in 45 countries and is continuing to make progress against the large online platforms, such as Amazon and Alibaba. Meanwhile, the stock market is still punshing the group for its falling margins; on Tuesday, its share price fell again, by 0.86% to €25.25.

Original story: El Economista (by Javier Romera)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Neinor Starts Buying “Non-Finalist” Land

23 February 2018 – Expansión

With its first birthday as a listed company just around the corner, Neinor is making a strategic shift. It is negotiating the acquisition of “non-finalist” land (plots that require urban planning management to become developable) to maintain its pace of development once it has reached its cruising speed in 2020. Specifically, the property developer, which has plots of land on its radar worth €500 million, is holding negotiations with banks, private investors and institutional funds regarding the possible completion of three land purchase operations involving “non-finalist” plots for around €200 million. They will allow for the construction of around 1,000 homes spread over various cities, including Madrid and Barcelona.

Under the framework of the negotiations, Neinor plans to make an initial payment of almost 10% of the total price to take control of the “non-finalist” land and to pay the remaining balance once the plots have been granted their corresponding urban planning permits, within a period of between three and five years. “My concern now focuses on acquiring a land bank to put into production from 2022 onwards”, explains the CEO of the company, Juan Velayos (pictured above).

The real estate firm, which announced results yesterday, closed last year with losses of €4.6 million but expects to become profitable in 2018. If we take into account the incentive plan for directors amounting to €19 million – of which €10.6 million corresponded to the CEO – paid in its entirety by the fund Lone Star, and the costs associated with the stock market debut,  then the property developer lost €25.9 million last year.

In 2017, Neinor generated revenues of €225 million, of which €77 million proceeded from its property developer business. It also recorded cumulative pre-sales of €746 million. The company, which delivered 313 homes in 2017, expects to hand over 1,000 units in 2018. It then plans to double that figure in 2019, to 2,000 units; and reach its cruising speed from 2020 onwards with 4,000 units. That would represent the high end of the range announced initially, although it will do so with an evolution in “more conservative phases to protect margins, improve the quality of revenues and deliveries”, he said.

Neinor owns 1.5 million m2 of developable land with capacity for the construction of 12,500 homes and a gross asset value (GAV) of €1.7 billion. The company, which invested €286 million in land in 2017 for the development of 3,100 units, plans to disburse another €200 million on purchases this year. Neinor’s share price closed trading down by 4% yesterday at €16.66.

Original story: Expansión (by Rebeca Arroyo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Velayos: Neinor Plans to Deliver 15,000 Homes by 2022

23 February 2018 – Eje Prime

Despite ending last year with a loss, Neinor Homes seems to have everything under control. The property developer is now heading into a new  five-year phase during which time it expects to leave behind those losses and invest almost €1.5 billion in the purchase of new land and to deliver up to 15,000 homes, according to explanations provided by Juan Velayos (pictured above), CEO of Neinor Homes, speaking to Eje Prime in an interview.

“You always have to read the cycle and, now, is a good time for the real estate business”, explains Velayos. “We complain that there is not as much land as we would like in the market, but the reality is there is, just not in the hands of property developers”.  Over the next few years, new land will start to be released, which will satisfy the desire of companies such as Neinor Homes, and other players that operate in this sector, including Aedas Homes, Vía Célere and Metrovacesa, to continue growing.

In 2018, Neinor Homes plans to invest around €250 million in land. “At the moment, we are studying land on our radar worth around €500 million, of which €151 million is already in the negotiation phase, another €145 million is under analysis and the remaining €217 million is strategic land for Neinor Homes”, says the director.

Over the next few years, Neinor Homes has set itself the challenge of investing between €300 million and €350 million in the purchase of new land until, at least, 2022. “Nevertheless, we are negotiating several purchase operations for non-buildable plots, minimising the use of own funds, whereby following the Anglo-Saxon model,” said Velayos, as one of the alternatives that he has found to continue gaining ground in the development of its business plan.

In terms of the delivery of homes, since its creation until 2017, Neinor Homes has delivered 432 homes, with a gross margin of approximately 28%. Now, the company has set itself the objective of handing over 1,000 homes in 2018, in order to reach its cruising speed over the following years and double the delivery of finished homes year after year. In this way, Neinor Homes expects to hand over 2,000 homes in 2019, 4,000 homes in 2020 and 8,000 homes between 2021 and 2022.

Currently, Neinor Homes has a portfolio of 12,472 homes in stock, including finished homes, homes under construction and homes under design, compared to 9,025 a year ago, which represents an increase of 28%. The property developer owns a portfolio of buildable land spanning 1.47 million m2, which has also grown since last year, by 29%.

In terms of Neinor Homes’ debt, according to Velayos, it is “more than under control”. The company has net debt amounting to €382 million, up by 31% compared to last year, when its credit obligations stood at €291.6 million. “It is healthy and an indicator that the business is performing well: we finance the construction phases using bank debt and the purchase of land using own funds”, says the executive. The group’s loan-to-value is 22%.

2018 – the turning point

The property developer lost €25 million in 2017, weighed down by the costs of its stock market debut, as the group reported yesterday to the National Securities and Exchange Commission (CNMV). Nevertheless, Neinor Homes still has the objective of becoming profitable in 2018. If Neinor Homes fulfils all of its objectives for the coming year, the company will sell and deliver (and receive the proceeds for) 1,000 homes, at an average price of €300,000. As such, with a return of 20%, the property developer could generate profits of €60 million.

The revenues of the company, which has been listed since March 2017 and for that reason does not compare its accounts with those of 2016, amounted to €225 million, of which €77 million proceeded from the new build property developer business and more than €114 million from the sale of “legacy“, assets proceeding from the real estate subsidiary of Kutxabank, which its former shareholder Lone Star purchased in 2015 to create it.

Following the same calculations, the turnover of the company from the handover of homes in 2018 would thus amount to €300 million, excluding any pre-sales that may be closed during the course of the year, which Neinor calculates will amount to €750 million.

Original story: Eje Prime (by Custodio Pareja)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Amazon Launches Automated Lockers in Repsol, Día and Telepizza Stores

28 November 2017 – El País

Amazon is bringing its automated lockers to Spain. They are now located in more than 120 places across 30 Spanish cities, where customers may receive their packages in a simple and safe way, according to a statement issued by the e-commerce giant today (Tuesday).

The lockers are located at selected Repsol gas stations, Telepizza restaurants, Merlin and Unibail shopping centres, Día supermarkets and OhMyBox storage spaces. They are located in Madrid, Barcelona, Alicante, Sevilla, Tarragona, Valencia, Granada, Murcia and 21 other cities.

This is a collection option for customers who do not want to have to be at home to receive deliveries. Amazon Lockers are automated lockers from where customers can collect their packages at their own convenience. Amazon’s customers can choose the Amazon Locker that fits with their daily schedule, be it at a gas station on the outskirts of town or at one of the shopping centres, pizza restaurants or supermarkets located in the city centre.

More than half of the pick-up points are located at Repsol gas stations, specifically, it has 70 sites across 21 provinces, according to the oil and gas company.

Barcode access

After buying on Amazon.es, customers are invited to select the Amazon Locker of their choice where they can collect their package at the time that best suits them. As soon as the package arrives at the locker, the customer receives an email notification with a unique code, as well as the address and opening hours of the locker that he/she has selected. Once at the pick-up point, customers can either enter the code manually or scan the barcode to access their packages.

Customers have three days to collect their packages before they are returned to Amazon. Some of the lockers are available for customers 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

“Our customers in 30 Spanish cities can now use Amazon Lockers. We are delighted that they can choose where and when they collect their orders”, said François Nuyts, Vice-President and Director General of Amazon.es and Amazon.it. “We are investing heavily in Spain to constantly improve the shopping experience for our customers and we are proud to offer Amazon Lockers as an alternative, as well as to work with our partner companies, such as Repsol, Telepizza, Unibail and Día, amongst many others, to offer a new service to our customers.

Original story: El País (by Ramón Muñoz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Stoneweg Still Has €200M To Invest In Spain

10 November 2017 – El Economista

The Swedish real estate investment platform Stoneweg, founded at the beginning of 2015 by the Spaniards Joaquín Castellví (pictured below, left) and Jaume Sabater (pictured below, right) in Geneva, has an investment plan for Spain amounting to €750 million. “So far, we have spent €550 million and our intention is to continue looking for opportunities in Madrid, Barcelona and along the coast, to spend the remaining balance that we have left of the €200 million”, explains Castellví.

Both partners left the bank Edmond de Rothschild to embark on this new venture, which, in just two years has established a presence in Italy, the USA and Switzerland, as well as in Spain. In the latter, its strategy is based on property development, including both new build and renovation projects, primarily residential, which currently account for 89.5% of its portfolio. In this way, the firm is currently working on the construction of 1,600 homes and “between October and November, we will be delivering the first units”, said the Director. He added that in the case of Madrid, the firm is looking for opportunities in the centre, in neighbourhoods such as Moncloa and Arguelles, “where there is a latent demand for a type of product that has not been built for many years”.

Stoneweg’s latest project in the centre of the Spanish capital is in the former Provincial Court building in Madrid, located on Calle Ferraz, where it is going to build 25 homes. “We have already started to market the homes and in the first week alone we have sold five units”, said the Director, who points out that the prices in other neighbourhoods, such as Salamanca and Chamberí, do not fit with their strategy, since they are looking for average returns of between 15% and 20%.

In its residential business, Stoneweg is also working by means of one-off partnerships with other property developers. Such is the case of its largest operation in Móstoles, where it has purchased a plot land for 300 homes together with ACR.

Also positioned in offices

The firm also holds positions in the office sector. In Barcelona, in fact, it is working on the largest business development in the city, the Luxa complex, comprising two buildings, which have already been pre-leased to Amazon and WeWork. “We sold those two properties to Catalana Occidente and we are now searching for a tenant for the WIP building, also located in 22@, measuring 4,500 m2. Once it has been leased, we will put it up for sale”.

The Director is optimistic because he acknowledges that “clearly, all the noise and uncertainty that we are currently seeing in Cataluña is not having any effect; we continue to have faith in the fundamentals of the city (…)”.

Original story: El Economista (by Alba Brualla)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Private Housing Developments Reactivate Sevilla’s Crisis-Hit Neighbourhoods

26 October 2017 – Sevilla ABC

The new residential expansion zones planned for Sevilla and its metropolitan area will move from paper to reality over the next five years. The economic recovery and express reactivation of the property sector will allow neighbourhoods to be established once again, after the crisis reduced many of them to isolated developments without any services or public infrastructure.

Perhaps the clearest example of this new panorama is Entrenúcleos, in Dos Hermanas, where plans are afoot to construct 2,500 homes. The project has been entrusted to Insur and BBVA, which has already started to market the first phase, involving almost 300 properties. That development will be built in parallel to that of the social housing blocks promised by the real estate firm Altamira – a subsidiary of Banco Santander – and the Ferrocarril group.

The growth of this Nazarene enclave was originally reflected in the PGOU approved in 2002, with a view to creating a neighbourhood with more than 20,000 inhabitants, almost a small city between the urban centres of Dos Hermanos and Montequinto.

The latter nucleus has also undergone significant residential expansion  in recent times thanks to the company Bekinsa, which has constructed several developments in the area around Avenida de Europa, the last remaining space left to build on, next to the Metro stop, where a couple of urbanisations have already been sold, for delivery this year, and where off-plan apartments are being sold, for delivery in 2019.

More buildings are going to be built next to these homes on plots, located next to the shopping centre, which have been acquired by Quintos, S.A., with capacity for 800 two-, three- and four-bedroom homes.

In the Andalucian capital, the cranes are already appearing in the neighbourhoods on the outskirts, where there are still large blocks of land left to populate. As set out in the Urban Development Plan, the city will continue to grow eastwards, with a new recently announced development. It will be constructed by the Madrilenian company Vía Célere, which has acquired the former plots of the real estate company Osuna after they ended up in the hands of BBVA. The investment has exceeded €26 million and will allow for the construction of 1,700 homes on the land closest to the water park, on the Airport Industrial Estate (…)

New neighbourhoods

The property developer Metrovacesa is also working on a residential plan of a similar scale on land in Palmas Altas, taking advantage of the interest that the new shopping centre will generate there and the recent agreement that it has reached with the Town Hall to push ahead with the initiative (…).

The final area of residential expansion in Sevilla is Hacienda Rosario, located next to Torreblanca, where 1,977 homes are due to be constructed around a large park, which will form the lungs of the new neighbourhood. Of those, around 800 will be social housing properties and the remainder will be private homes (…).

Another aspect that has caught people’s attention is the decided commitment from the American investment funds to the real estate sector in Sevilla. Several, such as Värde Partners (through Vía Célere) and Aedas Homes, which is leading the project in Hacienda Rosario, will be looking to the Andalucian capital to push ahead with their plans over the next five years.

Original story: Sevilla ABC (by Elena Martos)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Elektro3 Opens State-Of-The-Art Logistics Centre In Tarragona

13 October 2017 – Mis Naves

Elektro3 is opening a new logistics centre in Vilaseca-Salou with a total surface area of 15,500 m2, of which 8,000 m2 is going to be used exclusively as a warehouse. The centre currently has capacity for 14,000 pallets and 12,500 bins.

The company, whose main operations involve the import and distribution of hardware products, is continuing its expansion process. The main improvements are expected in the storage, preparation and shipment of orders with refurbished industrial machinery and a new rail guidance system.

In turn, the centre has seven loading bays, which allows it to receive and ship all of the company’s products anywhere on the peninsula within 24 hours.

With these new facilities, Elektro3 is expected to be able to reach its objective of managing 8,500 product references, thanks to the implementation of a specialist framework of warehouse management systems. Also, a new 600 m2 showroom has been created inside the new platform, with an area specialising in the display of all products relating to lighting.

Original story: Mis Naves

Translation: Carmel Drake